What is the nature of instincts and inborn behaviour? The cover article of this week’s issue of Current Biology is an article by Kim et al. on how the central nervous system produces inborn behaviour. The researchers found that the innate behavior is initiated by a “command” hormone that orchestrates activities in discrete groups of [...]
Archive for July, 2006
The making (and tailoring) of instincts
Posted in comparative studies, neuroscience, neurotransmitters on July 31, 2006 | 1 Comment »
Gene-environment interactions and the brain
Posted in development, genetics, imaging genetics, neuroscience, people, psychiatry on July 25, 2006 | 4 Comments »
Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffitt [interview with Moffitt here on npr] made quite a splash in 2002 when they published the paper “Role of Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in Maltreated Children” in Science. They reported that maltreated children would differ in the development of antisocial personality and violent behaviour depending upon whether or [...]
News for the bookshelf
Posted in book on July 24, 2006 | 2 Comments »
As we receive review copies of new books from different publishers, it’s a good idea to make you aware of the titles that are emerging these days. Although we’d like to, it won’t be possible to review all of those splendid books. Instead, we bring you here the latest new book titles. Indeed, besides being [...]
I just love it when I don’t loose any money
Posted in emotions, neuroeconomics on July 21, 2006 | 1 Comment »
There’s quite a nice little study by John O’Doherty and his group in the August issue of PLoS Biology pertaining to one of the most fascinating stuctures of the brain, the orbitofrontal cortex. They had subjects play a simple economic game with four different possible outcomes while being scanned in an MR-scanner: (1) receipt of [...]
Reviewing evolution
Posted in book review, evolution, intelligent design on July 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
The New York Book Review has a great review by Edward Ziff and Israel Rosenfield of three forthcoming books on evolution. What makes the review so great also is that it describes the development of the idea of evolution, from the feeble beginnings of comparisons between dolphin fins and bird wings, through Darwin’s theory of [...]
The mobile truth of cellular phones
Posted in brain injury, cognitive science on July 18, 2006 | 9 Comments »
Does talking in your mobile phone influence the workings of your brain? Yes, claims a new study in Neuropsychologia of healthy volunteers. But it’s not only bad, it seems; some cognitive functions become better during mobile phone radiation.
Mobile phone radiation and health concerns have been raised since the 1990s, especially following the enormous increase in [...]
Welcome back, Terry Wallis?
Posted in brain connectivity, consciousness, neuroimaging on July 10, 2006 | 6 Comments »
It’s all in the news these days. A man who has been in a coma (or is it “coma-like”, “almost coma” or what?) since a car accident in 1984 has now regained consciousness, and cognitive abilibties such as his speech. It’s already been written so much about this topic, but little is actually addressing the [...]
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